So much to say!

Liam is a chatterbox! He has always had a lot to say in his cute little baby language.

His receptive vocabulary is also outstanding; he can understand almost anything you tell or ask him. But back to talking...so far, he has a few intelligible words--Dada and Momma are the most prominent, and "ba" when you ask him what a sheep says, and his newest word "ball" (as of yesterday!).

Otherwise, Liam communicates most effectively with sign language. He has quite a few signs now. I've decided to take an inventory of Liam's "words" and "sentences".

-milk
-apple
-banana
-fork
-cheese
-pizza
-play
-book/read a book
-bath
-home/go home
-hungry
-food
-dog
-please
-thank you
-hot
-cold (otherwise known as his funny face)
-help
-cookie
-pear
-Daddy
-music
-Liam
-all done
-crayon/draw
-broken
-I like...
-I love you

(Hm. A lot of food words. You can tell what holds his interest!)

Anyway, I predict a boom of verbal language in the next couple of weeks. He's thrilled that he can say "ball" now and will flip through his books to find pictures of balls just so he can point to them and say, "ball". :) He has been trying to say book and dog today, too. He watches my mouth and purses his lips and tries so hard. He's gotten them a couple of times each, but he's not yet consistent with his accuracy. It will come! But until then, he picks up his sign language really quickly and it helps him communicate and keeps those nasty tantrums at bay (hallelujah!). For example, a light burned out in our kitchen and I told him it was "broken" and showed him the sign for broken (like you are breaking a pencil in half in front of you) and pointed to the light. Well, he pointed to the light at least 30 times today (not an exaggeration!!) and I had to tell/show him it's broken and I'll fix it. Eventually. I promise. Jeez. Quit nagging. ;) So, now he can also do his own sign for "broken" (as he points to the light yet again...)

Smartypants.

love,
b